Category Archives: Juicing

I’ve done a lot of juicing and smoothying (that may or not be a word but it’s staying)…but I’ve also eaten. The important thing is I haven’t been hungry….and the great thing is that in the process I’ve lost 4kgs (8.8lb)!!!! So I’m very pleased.

I’ve cut down portion sizes on solid food so I’ve still been able to have most things…..seems I’m back in the mind set i need to be in.

Now I have to try and keep focused on things – work in constant progress

I’ve started my healthy eating again …hey I didn’t say my journey to a healthier me wouldn’t have twists and turns, roadblocks etc I’m hoping that 2016 is going to be less dramatic than the last 18 months have been for me but c’est la vie – that’s life. It’s not the getting knocked down that’s a the biggest problem it’s what you do to get back up and how you handle it. I’m human and I struggle and it would have been a pretty boring blog if I started off …Okey dokey I’m going to lose weight and then just did it and bam that was it (although from my point of view that would have been fabulous !!). I’m hoping that this is going to be yet another tool in my kit to getting healthy and it will mean I can have smoothies without worrying about the milk part too much.

Anyhoo I digress….

I’m using a lot of juices and smoothies but obviously I don’t want to drink gallons of milk in the process – it would kind of defeat the point…..so…today I thought I’d have a go at making Oat milk and Coconut milk. Both were a pretty simple process made simpler for me because I wasn’t bothered about sieving them to within an inch of their life – I am quite happy to have the bits in them as added fibre but if someone wasn’t then all you have to do is put the milk through a sieve a couple of times to get rid of the bits.

Oat MilkMade from oats and enriched with vitamins and calcium. Low in saturated fat.

1 cup of steel cut or pinhead Oats

3 cups of filtered water (we’re on a well so I use our own water)

1tsp Vanilla extract or Almond essence (Optional – I used both today because one smoothie recipe called for Almond milk which I’m not buying)

1 tsp honey (optional)

A high speed blender is needed really for these milks, not so much the Oat milk if you’re going to sieve it but the coconut milk certainly. My blender isn’t that high speed but I’ve got a Nutri Bullet too so I was able to high speed blitz them in smaller amounts.

Soak the oats for 20 minutes (you can soak them overnight if you want to) this is just to get rid of the slime you get off them when they’re soaked (Oh yes there such a thing as oat slime ).

Once you’ve done that you rinse the oats several times and when you’re satisfied you’ve got rid of said slime you pop them into your blender.

and add the water and essences along with the honey. After this stage is where you want to sieve it if you’re going to. I didn’t and to be honest once I’d given it a good blitz it wasn’t that bitty and I think the oats make the “milk” have more body to it (otherwise it’s a very watery thing).

Good for…A low-fat option with all the goodness of oats.

Taste… Creamy with a slightly powdery aftertaste.

Cooking…Won’t split when heated, good for a white sauce.

Oat milk nutrition per 100ml

45 kcals

120mg calcium

1.5g fat

0.2g sat fat

4g sugar

1.0g protein

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Coconut MilkMade from pressed coconut with added calcium. This is lower in protein, with higher levels of saturated fat than most other plant based options.

1/2 cup of shredded coconut

2 cups of water.

1/4 tsp Himalayan salt (I used sea salt)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of 100% stevia or 1 tsp honey or maple syrup (I used honey)

All into a high speed blender and blend for 5 minutes it didn’t take this long and I did it in short blasts because the Nutribullet doesn’t like being on for long periods of time. I would say it was blasted in a minute give or take.

After this sieve if that’s what you want to do …..I didn’t.

Good for…Vegetarians. Try it with your cereal, and in tea and coffee.

Taste…Light with a hint of coconut.

Cooking…Great for baking, as the coconut flavour won’t overpower the food. Makes a good batch of sweet dairy free pancakes – as the milk is quite thin, you won’t need as much in your batter.

Coconut milk nutrition per 100ml:

25 kcals

120mg calcium

1.8g fat

1.6g sat fat

1.6g sugar

0.2g protein

So my thoughts….

I tried making them with different types of oats- Pinhead / Steel cut and rolled. My opinion (and it’s the only one I’ve got) is the steel cut produced a nicer taste and a creamier consistency (pity because I was hoping the rolled oats would be OK as they’re a lot cheaper …but hey ho).

You can sieve them (I did with some of the mix just to see) but to be honest once they’ve been given a good blast in a blender they’re not that bitty.

I’m not going to say they are milk but they’re OK in smoothies where you’ve got other things going on ….not sure I’d use them in my cup of tea but they’re good for what I need them for.

Doing themself take a little bit of time but it’s going to be a lot cheaper than buying in the quantities I may need.

There has been much publicity of late about Nutriblasts…wonderful juices where you put your fruit and veg in and it pulverises everything to a juice.

I’ve said before I want have as many things in my weight loss toolbox so when I started juicing I drifted into investigating about nutriblasts. The main thing that I can see in their favour is that you are pretty much getting everything that you put into the blaster (I’m not going to advertise them lol) and it’s turned into the juice by being blasted to smithereens.

I’ve read that it’s good to juice to let the digestive system have a rest when you juice the body burns up and excretes huge amounts of accumulated wastes. When the intestine is emptied the digestive enzymes are able to work on the hidden away and hardened deposits in the nooks and crannies and folds along your digestive system and as you go along more embedded toxins are released. So from what I can see just juice is more effective in healing the body and the intestines…..HOWEVER….

At some point I know you have to go back to eating …man cannot live by juice alone …but when you’ve juiced for a while I would imagine you need to be kind to your digestive system and wake it up gently when you restart eating. No ploughing into a big dinner of steak and chips as your first meal…So nutriblasts could be the way to go you’ll be getting the fibre, it will be pulverised but still there…

The other thing I can see in their favour is that you are going to use less fruit and veg as a result because in addition to the fruit you’re getting the fibre….so I you’re going to be full from less….so possibly frugal too because the price it costs to juice is not cheap…I reckon within a short space of time I will have saved a fair bit.

So on that basis I’ve bought a blaster (still not going to advertise them ). Here in NZ you can only get the 600W version so I had a little wander around the www and found a 900W version that is much cheaper than the 600W I can get here…job done! It’s on it’s way so I’ll wait and see how that works out a little down the track…but it’s another tool to go in that tool box – I know this will get used too as I had a much older version that that didn’t have any Nutri attached to the name that got used for blending and chopping all sorts – I managed to burn the motor out because I used it so much so I know it’s not going to sit quietly in the cupboard doing nothing (I absolutely refuse to have gagdets in this house I don’t use!).

So that’s a one for the future for me to write about…..if anyone has anything to say about nutriblasting that would be great otherwise I’ll enjoy my wanderings to others blogs to look about…have a great day wherever you are in this global village of ours

Since I tried juicing a few weeks ago there are a few things that have come from it, the main one being the feeling of well being.

I know that sounds corny but it’s true…the feeling has been interesting and even others have noticed the change. I said a few weeks ago that I didn’t think I would juice all the time…I’ve changed my mind….hey a person can change their mind can’t they?!

So as of today I’ve started juicing full time….I’ve been really enjoying the juices and so thought I’d see how I feel doing them all the time.

It’s that thing about using all different tools on a weight loss journey…I’m not sure how long I will do it for (hey I was saying I didn’t think I would do it a few weeks ago)but I will just see how things go….

One of the things I’ve learnt over the last couple of weeks whilst I’ve been having fun with foodis that actually it makes me feel toxic when I go off the healthy eating thing now…toxic might sound a little dramatic but I can’t think of any other way to describe it so I’m sticking with toxic.

I’ve put those few pounds on and so this will serve a dual purpose…it will get rid of that toxic feeling and it will jump start the weight loss again…so hopefully win win…I’ll write how I get on.